A great internet marketing strategy is to become a thought leader and to position your company as its own media publishing company. Companies are leveraging inbound and content marketing to position themselves as an online publishing enterprise.

Thought leadership marketing doesn’t need to just be a series of webinars, white papers and written blogs. Imagine web video as a hybrid of a magazine and a TV show, but distributed over the Internet. With that said, why wouldn’t you have your own web video network?

Mr. Marketing or Mr. M for short says “I pity the fool that doesn’t know how to use online video for their business”

We learned that the city of San Leandro was promoting Make San Leandro, a Maker movement event focusing on art, technology and education which was the perfect opportunity for online video. We proactively decided to become involved by creating a live streaming video show on location at Make San Leandro. The show featured numerous thought leaders talking about an innovation ecosystem and new, unique applications of technologies.

Espen Sivertsen and Derick Lee

The show, movers & MAKERS was the debut broadcast of In-Sites, a new internet channel developed by Direct Images Interactive. The live video kicked off with a woman-on-the street interview of Congresswoman Barbara Lee by Rena Nicole of the Rena Nicole Show. This was followed by on-site studio coverage of Type A machines CEO, Espen Sivertsen being interviewed by millennial entrepreneur Derick Lee. Other interview subjects include Greg DeLaune of UIX Global, Cat Casuat—Hackathon winner, Barbara Hanna of Cyant, Nora Touré of Sculpteo, and many more.

All in all, the 4 hour program featured video interviews with over 20 individuals from the Make San Leandro event. You can see archived sessions from the video event at watch videos here.

Tips on Becoming A Thought Leader with Online Video

If you were inspired by our movers & MAKERS broadcast and want to utilize something similar for your business, here are a few key tips that we learned that will help you hit the ground running with online video.

Pick a format that works best for your brand. Whether it’s product demos or behind-the-scenes staff interviews, pick an ideal video format for your brand that not only engages your audience but gives them a personalized, inside look into your company culture.

Good content always has an objective; it’s created with intent. It therefore carries triggers to action.—Ann Handley

Keep your message on point. If you or your team are new to being in the spotlight, keeping your message on target may be difficult. However with the help of a script and teleprompter, it will help minimize ranting and stumbling in your videos—allowing your message to be clear and focused to your audience.

Make your videos actionable. Whether it’s an eBook or a live event, including a CTA with your message creates a push for your audience to take action. In fact, check out this example as we include an interactive CTA at the end of our In-Sites video:

Distribute. Distribute. Distribute. Don’t hold onto your video for too long on the editing table. Once your video is good and ready, distribute it to your audience on every platform that they are engaged in, i.e. from your email list to your Facebook group to your Twitter followers.

Analyze its progress. See what works. But most importantly, analyze what did not work—minimizing the risk of yourself and your team from making low performing content in the future.

Once you free yourself from the need for perfect acceptance, it’s a lot easier to launch work that matters.—Seth Godin

Be authentic and original. Do not create video just for the sake of following the mainstream flow. Create your videos with authenticity and originality because these are the keys to success between your company and your audience—establishing trust and value throughout their entire user experience again and again.

For more information on best practices in creating live video for your business, explore the following blog posts and start becoming a thought leader in your industry with online video:

To be a company that exemplifies thought leadership, you need to have an idea engine, a concept forge, AS WELL AS an outward-leaning communication stance combined with a desire to raise the playing field—a capability to not only learn new things, to not only discover them for the first time, but to educate others—selflessly.—Tom Paul

Direct Images Interactive is an inbound marketing agency specializing in high-impact video production and online graphic design. We are centrally located between Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose. Come see us at The Gate in San Leandro, a thriving tech-hub of innovators. What can we do for you?